A Bizarre, Morbid Bicycle
by Clearly Odd
Summary: Reid attempts to convince JJ he will be okay on crutches because he's been on them before. JJ/Reid, established. A smidge of whump, oneshot.


A Bizarre, Morbid Bicycle

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Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds or anything else copyrighted, for that matter.

Author's Note: Hey, guys! I seem to be establishing a bit of a pattern here, huh? Hurt/Comfort, Humor, Hurt/Comfort… any guesses as to what I'll write next? Well, never mind that; enjoy the story! Oh, this would take place shortly after Reid was shot, by the way.

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_The truth is rarely pure and never simple._

_~Oscar Wilde_

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"Spence, be careful!" JJ reached out to steady Reid as he teetered on his crutches while he dug through his bag for the key to his apartment.

"JJ, I'm fine. You haven't seen me fall over yet, have you?" Reid replied, finally locating his key at the bottom of his bag; how it always ended up there, he was never sure.

"No, but…" JJ jumped when Reid leaned forward, precariously balanced, to place his bag on the ground and unlock the door. "You keep performing ridiculous balancing acts that you couldn't do on your own two feet and you're making me jumpy."

"I'm not _that_ clumsy, and I…" He leaned down to pick up his bag and very nearly lost his balance, almost taking a nosedive into the floor before JJ grabbed him and hauled him upright.

"Not that clumsy, huh?" She asked slyly, snatching up his bag and marching into the apartment and waiting by the door so she could shut it after Reid hobbled in.

"I'm serious. You don't forget how to use crutches, it's like riding a bicycle… a somewhat bizarre, morbid bicycle, but I think you get my point." He shrugged as best he could while leaning on the crutches before holding out his hand for his messenger bag.

"No, I've got it. You go ahead and sit down, I'll be in in a minute." JJ told him, walking around him to his bedroom to deposit his bag.

"I'm not an invalid. I can do things for myself; it just takes me a little longer."

"Spence, you can't tell me you don't get tired hobbling around on those things all day. Your arms have got to be sore. Besides, I really don't mind helping you." JJ said in a tone that left no room for argument before she cracked a small smile. "Plus, it gives me an excuse to hang around here."

Reid blushed a little bit, though his embarrassment at such comments had lessened greatly in the time he and JJ had been dating. "You never need an excuse to stay here." He told her quietly.

She smiled a little wider and gave him a quick kiss before she went to his room. While she was putting his bag away, he moved into the living room, leaned his crutches against the couch and sat down gratefully. Though he certainly wouldn't admit it, navigating around on crutches all day was indeed tiring and he was glad to finally be home to rest. A moment after he'd gotten situated on the couch, JJ came in to join him. "Why does it not surprise me that you've been on crutches before?" She asked with a teasing smile.

Shooting a weak glare in JJ's direction, Reid let his head loll back to rest on the back of the couch. "It wasn't _my_ fault… the first time."

"The _first_ time? Spence, exactly how many times have you been on crutches?" JJ asked, a mixture of exasperation and incredulousness in her voice.

"Counting this time? Three times."

JJ waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't speak again. "Well, what happened? Did you get hurt on the job before this?"

After a moment's pause, Reid sat up to look at her, looking a little sheepish. "When I was 16, I was working on my second PhD. I was coming out of the library and I had a lot of books… I had so many that they didn't all fit in my backpack and I had to carry some of them."

"Why did you need so many?" JJ asked with a small laugh. "Couldn't you just have left them at the library and read them all in half an hour?"

"I had to get home." Reid said with a shrug before continuing his tale. "I loved that library; it had an amazing collection of literature, but it had a ridiculous amount of stairs outside. I overstepped on the last one and twisted my ankle pretty badly. The doctor told me I probably wouldn't have injured it as badly if I hadn't had the extra 20 pounds of books…"

JJ attempted to smother her smile and even Reid looked somewhat amused, being as the incident in question had happened more than 10 years ago. When JJ once again had a handle on her amusement, she turned back to Reid. "So what happened the first time?" She asked.

He fidgeted slightly and looked away from her. "I've never told anybody about that. Ever. Not my mother, my teachers, the doctors, the police…"

JJ's eyes widened. _The police? What the hell happened?_ She didn't voice her thoughts, however, she only placed an encouraging hand on Reid's forearm. He had opened up to her about many things over the years, just as she had, but he'd never mentioned anything that involved the police. He paused for a few minutes before continuing, collecting his thoughts. "I always thought that one day all the bullying would go too far and someone would be seriously hurt… I just hoped it wouldn't be me. When I was 12, it was about a month before graduation…"

_Spencer walked down the street, heading home after school. He heard the voices of three different people behind him, all-too-familiar and very unpleasant, but he merely hitched his backpack higher on his shoulders and kept walking. Perhaps if they couldn't see him from the front, they would mistake him for an elementary-schooler. However, he realized that he would have no such luck; they were walking faster than him and would soon surpass him on the sidewalk. He swerved to the side, walking as close to the buildings as he could so as to be out of their way._

_He thought it had worked; the three jocks walked right past him, laughing and joking. Spencer dared to relax a little until one of the football players turned to walk backwards and address his compatriots. From the look on the player's face, Spencer knew he'd been spotted. He froze and prepared to turn around and walk the other way as the boy alerted his friends to the 12-year-old's presence. "Hey, Spencer!" He called out in an exaggeratedly friendly tone, though Spencer knew there was nothing friendly about his intentions._

_Spencer turned on his heels and ran. Forget acting brave, he'd had enough abuse. But the jocks could run much faster on their longer legs and quickly caught up to him, yanking him back by his backpack and encircling him. "Where you going in such a hurry, Geek?" One asked._

"_L-listen… c-can't we just drop all the animosity… p-please?" Spencer stuttered._

_One laughed and the others followed with mirthless laughs that showed they found no actual humor in the situation. "I don't think so, Freak. For someone so _smart_, you sure can't take a hint."_

"_W-we're graduating in a month, can't we just…" Spencer tried again._

"_We? _We_? You're pretty confident there, Freak, putting yourself on our level." One player, who seemed to be the leader of the three, said, his face darkening._

"_You still don't get it, do you, Freak?" Another asked. "You'll never be on our level."_

"_You're a worthless little freak and you always will be." The first said, giving Spencer a hard shove._

_Spencer couldn't take it anymore and speech bubbled forth. He listened in horror, as though from a distance, as he shouted the things he'd always wanted to say. "Stay away from me! Keep your hands off me! I don't have to take abuse from people who's IQs couldn't measure up to mine if you added them all together!" As soon as the words tumbled out, he clapped his hands over his mouth, staring up in horror at the leading jock who he'd hollered at._

_He felt the first blow land hard on his cheek. He felt the white hot pain as the skin split open. Beyond that, however, he couldn't really recall much. It wasn't until his head hit the pavement- hard- some time later that his head cleared again, just for a second. He saw three pairs of legs running away in his limited line of sight. If he could only open his left eye, he'd be able to see more, but that task seemed to difficult right now. Everything was too difficult. When the darkness came to push the hot fog out of his head and wash away the pain, he welcomed it._

_The next thing Spencer knew, he found himself lying on his back. He swore he had been on his side when he had passed out on the pavement… but whatever he was laying on was too soft to be the sidewalk he'd been on anyway. Various sounds slowly ebbed into his consciousness until he felt fully awake, or about as awake as he was going to be. He could hear a steady mechanical beep somewhere near him, hustle and bustle and voices farther away from him, and then, quite close to him, a shuffling noise he was sure belonged to a person. Finally, he tried to open his eyes. However, he found that his left eye simply wouldn't cooperate. His right eye would do for now. Just in his line of slight was the general shape of a nurse, though his vision was rather blurry. He wondered vaguely what had happened to his glasses._

_So there was a nurse; he was in a hospital, then. She looked up when he tried to move. "Hey, there, Sweetie. You're awake. You gave us a bit of scare for a little while." She said in a soft, kind voice, leaning in closer as she did so._

_Up close, Spencer could tell that the nurse was a pretty young woman, but there was something in her eyes, and in her voice. She sounded so sad. He wondered why. He tried to ask, but all that came out of his mouth was a muffled moan. "Oh, I know it hurts, honey, we're going to get you something for the pain, though."_

_Spencer shook his head and wished he hadn't. His head hurt. However, he did manage to get out a few coherent words. "My mom?" He posed the two words as a question._

_More sadness in the nurse's green eyes. "She's here, honey, but she was so upset by what happened to you. She's resting now."_

"_Breakdown? Helps… if you read… t'her." Spencer mumbled._

_The nurse looked a little taken aback, but she nodded and smiled warmly, though it didn't purge the sadness from her eyes._

_Later that day, when Spencer was more awake, the nurse had reluctantly helped him out of the hospital bed and to the bathroom. When he finally caught a look at himself in the mirror, he didn't recognize whoever was looking back at him. His left eye was swollen completely shut, there was a cut on his left cheek, his lip was split, the rest of his face was covered in bruises, as were less visible parts of him. And those were just the superficial injuries. He had a minor concussion, a cracked rib, and a broken leg. Though his concussion was doing well, he'd been told, he soon grew too dizzy to stand there staring at his horrifying reflection in the mirror and returned to the confines of his hospital bed._

_One week later he came back to school, bruises still plain on his face, leaning heavily on a pair of crutches. It was probably too soon to return to school, he knew, but it wasn't as though his mother was going to keep him home. Everyone in the halls stared at him, much more than they ever had, but this time in pity rather than confusion or contempt. But he simply couldn't bring himself to care anymore._

"…I graduated with everyone else and by fall I had healed enough to start attending college." Reid finished his tale.

JJ stared at him, though he hadn't met her eyes during the entire explanation. "Spence…" She searched for some appropriate words, but found nothing capable of articulating her feelings.

Finally, Reid looked up and met her eyes. She saw sadness there, but she also saw something like relief. "I've never told anyone the real story before. It feels… good to be able to tell someone." He said quietly.

"You never told anyone? What about the police? Wasn't there an investigation?" JJ asked incredulously.

Reid shook his head. "It was my word against three popular high schoolers, whose alibis were backed up by their girlfriends and the rest of the football team. There was one officer who followed it up until I graduated, but without my testimony, he couldn't do anything."

"Reid! If they snapped like that and nearly beat a 12-year-old to death…"

"Not to _death_, JJ, just…"

"It could happen again! I could've happened again already…"

Reid shook his head again, this time with a small smile. "As soon as I felt like Garcia and I were… not friends exactly, but friendly enough, I asked her to look in on them. All these years, she's been giving me updates on those three whenever something suspicious comes up. I think she's figured it out by now, but she still does it."

JJ couldn't help but give a small smile as well, though something in her eyes told Reid they would be discussing this topic later. "Only you, Spence." She reached over and ruffled his hair before leaning up against him with a contented smile, leaving her worries to rest for a more appropriate time.

Some weeks later, the BAU was in Los Angeles investigating a case involving "Dante," the gothic music star. One of the officers, taking a quick break, leaned against his desk and watched as one of the profilers- what was his name? Dr. Reid, that was it. He seemed to be in quite a hurry as he moved quickly down the hall while talking on the phone. That was much quicker than the officer had ever seen anyone move on crutches, and with only one arm, no less. Vaguely, he wondered how the young agent had gotten so good with those things, but he let the thought rest. There probably wasn't an interesting story behind it, anyway.

_It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense._

_~Mark Twain_

Author's Note: There, no making out at the end. Not a lot of romance, either. Oh, well. I hope you Reid fans enjoyed that little bit of whump. By the way, this story was inspired by the fact that Reid/MGG (who really did have to be on crutches) seemed to be quite adept at using crutches. The scene with the officer was out of "The Performer" (though the officer wasn't actually in that episode, for all we know). Bonus points if you know the scene to which I was referring. Until next time, dear readers!


End file.
